Tag: visas

The EU-Russia summit ended today (21 December) with no major decisions, but Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a show for the press, telling Commission President José Manuel Barroso that he was “not right” in his interpretation of energy liberalisation rules.

While protestors in major Russian cities vent frustration over apparent fraud in the recent parliamentary elections, Russia's president is heading to Brussels to meet EU leaders mollified by the unfolding eurozone crisis.

Against a background of unfolding revolutions in the Arab world, speakers at a conference in Istanbul last weekend said Turkey could provide a democratic model for Islamic countries to follow. But ironically, EU-Turkey relations have reached "stagnation point," they said.

To illustrate the changes in Ukraine under its new leadership, the country's foreign minister, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, referred to three bridges in Kyiv, the construction of which had been stagnating for the past five years. Now people can see that they are actually being built, he told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

The EU moved closer to starting accession talks with Serbia yesterday (25 October) after overcoming long-standing opposition from the Dutch government. Belgrade said a "new era" in its history had begun. BETA, EurActiv's partner in Serbia, contributed to this article.

French President Nicolas Sakozy hosted a trilateral summit with Germany and Russia to prepare for his country's G20 presidency, finding temporary refuge in world affairs as more than a million people took to the streets of France over planned reform of the pension system.

Following France's controversial expulsions of illegal Roma migrants, most of whom were EU nationals of Romanian and Bulgarian origin, Paris has signalled its opposition to lifting visa requirements for Bosnian and Albanian citizens. EurActiv.fr contributed to this article.

The European Commission today (27 May) adopted proposals to enable citizens of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina to travel with biometric passports to the Schengen countries without requiring visas. If the countries satisfy a number of outstanding requirements, visas could be lifted by autumn.

The successful preparation of Euro 2012 will be a moral application for Ukrainian EU membership, the country'se deputy foreign affairs minister, Konstantin Yelisieiev, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.